…for screaming into

March 5, 2012March 5, 2012

Anti-Beardism Is Alive and Well In Our Society

I’ve been out of work for a year. Last week I had my first interview after 12 months of submitting resumes. I nailed it and started this morning. I met with my supervisor, got a key card (no color coding like Doom), had my photo taken for my ID, and proceeded to the “Fish Tank”. I was going to be working in a call center and the Fish Tank was the loving name the employees gave it. I’ll leave out the name of the company and those involved to save faces.

After an hour of training with my supervisor, he received a call from HR. His brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, and he slowly exhaled. He tilted his head back, looked into the sky for something that wasn’t there, dipped the phone receiver beneath his chin, and through gritted teeth said, “Okay.” He turned to me and said, “I have to send you home.”

I cocked my head to the side with a quizzical look. “What?”

“HR just informed me that it’s against company policy for employees to have beards.” He was visibly shocked and pissed off with HR and himself for not remembering this policy. I had interviewed with said beard. With two supervisors. No one said a thing about facial hair restraints. Hell, one of them had a goatee.

I nodded, I’ve heard of such policies, but still shocked that in this day and age we are still faced with rampant anti-beardism. “Alright, so now what?”

You see, I was not the only one being trained today. There was another young lady. She may have had a mustache, but took the time to wax it. I can’t be certain, I didn’t look closely enough. The supervisor told me, “I can’t hold off on training you with [redacted] here. I was going to see how you both handled the work, but you’ll be at least a half a day behind and I can’t go back over those things with you later. I’m going to call [my temp agency rep] and talk to her.” I started laughing and this broke the tension, but he did have a look on his face that one uses for possibly crazy people. I left and called my rep.

Needless to say, she was shocked. After an hour, I was without a job again because of a beard that no one had cautioned me about before. This has been my day so far.

3 thoughts on “Anti-Beardism Is Alive and Well In Our Society”

BYU enforces a “no beards on campus” dress code. From wikipedia: “Male students may not wear beards or goatees without permission; such permission is usually granted only to men with skin conditions aggravated by shaving or for theatrical performances requiring beards. While BYU used to grant permission for religious purposes, this is no longer recognized as a valid exemption.”

This is, of course, less bothersome than some other items in their “honor code” which prohibits homosexual displays, sexual acts outside of marriage, viewing of pornography, and short skirts.

Ah, Utah.

Stay strong Kos. You come to IL and we can get you a crummy call center job any day. Ask Scott.